The present invention relates generally to the field of information transfer over the Internet and the various protocols associated with such information transfer.
The Internet presents significant challenges and opportunities to providers of traditional network services. The number of Internet users is growing exponentially, stimulating network service providers to create new services to capture this new market.
One successful and widely publicized portion of the Internet is the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is the total set of interlinked hypertext documents residing on HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) servers all around the world. Documents on the World Wide Web, called pages or Web pages, are written in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), identified by URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) that specify the particular machine and pathname by which a file can be accessed, and transmitted from node to node to the end user under Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Codes, called tags, embedded in an HTML document associate particular words and images in the document with URLs so that a user can access another file, which may be halfway around the world, at the press of a key or the click of a mouse. These files may contain text (in a variety of fonts and styles), graphics images, movie files, and sounds as well as Java applets, ActiveX controls, or other small embedded software programs that execute when the user activates them by clicking on a link. A user visiting a Web page also may be able to download files from an FTP site and send messages to other users via e-mail by using links on the Web page. FIG. 11 is a screen shot of a conventional Web browser.
At a conceptual level, the World Wide Web can be thought of as a vast, hyperlinked bank of data. To gain access to the World Wide Web, a user must install on his or her computer the appropriate software and obtain a network connection from an Internet access provider.
The URL identifier for a resource specifies the protocol to be used in accessing the resource (such as xe2x80x9chttp:xe2x80x9d for a World Wide Web page or xe2x80x9cftp:xe2x80x9d for an FTP site), the name of the server on which the resource resides and optionally the path to a resource (such as an HTML document or a file on that server.) For example, in the URL
http://www.israeliinternet.com/thissubsite/sitecontents.html,
xe2x80x9chttp://xe2x80x9d identifies the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol; www.israeliinternet.com is the name of the relevant Web server; xe2x80x9c/thissubsite/xe2x80x9d identifies the directory of the desired document; and xe2x80x9csitecontents.htmlxe2x80x9d designates the document to view.
The name of the computer server that constitute part of a resource""s URL is not simply selected by the operator of the server but must be registered with the appropriate authorities. Otherwise, chaos would result if multiple servers had the same name. (This chaos is similar to the problem if several different radio stations all broadcast simultaneously on the same frequency.)
Each server name is associated with the 32 bit IP address that identifies a host machine on the Internet. The association is accomplished through the use of other computers known as Domain Name Servers. See Siyan, Karanjit, Inside TCP/IP, 3rd ed., New Riders Publishing, 1997.
For purposes of this patent application, the URL that is recognized on the Internet is referred as the xe2x80x9cconventional URLxe2x80x9d and the server name that is recognized on the Internet is referred to as the xe2x80x9cconventional server name.xe2x80x9d For purposes of this patent application, reference to languages, alphabets characters and glyphs are based on the terminology used in the specification for the Unicode standard. See The Unicode Standard Version 2.0, Addison-Wesley, 1998. For purposes of this patent application a character is defined as smallest component of written language that has semantic value; a glyph, on the other hand, represents the shape that the character can have when it is rendered or displayed.
Currently, all conventional URLs use Latin characters even if the URL is used in a written language that does not use Latin characters. FIG. 12 is a screen shot of a Hebrew language browser. Unfortunately, it can be difficult for users whose native written language does not use Latin characters to directly access Internet resources with conventional URLs because the user must remember complex and unfamiliar words or characters. In addition, a conventional URL must be provided in a specific syntax, which is difficult for many users to understand, and even the minor errors, such as confusing xe2x80x9c.xe2x80x9d withxe2x80x9d,xe2x80x9d would result in the user failing to access the desired resource.
When a person looks to go to somewhere in the World Wide Web, the URL address of which he or she does not know, one has to use a search engine. Most people, however, refrain from going online for two reasons. First, they have overwhelming number of options at every turn. Second, they are encountered with too many irrelevant sites, when using a search engine.
In addition to this, many Internet users will insert the generic URL address relating to the product they are looking for. For example, a person who is looking for car insurance will input the address xe2x80x9ccar insurancexe2x80x9d in his browser. Consequently, the owner of the Internet address xe2x80x9ccar insurancexe2x80x9d, will inevitably have continual stream of consumers who are looking for car insurance. In short, generic URL addresses are valuable because they are easy to remember.
It is an object of the invention to provide a system and method for a user of an apparatus whose written language is not based on a Latin characters to access a HTML page by inputting to the apparatus resource identifier that does not contain Latin characters.
It is an object of the invention to provide a system and method for a user of an apparatus to access a HTML page by inputting to the apparatus a resource identifier that is simpler or otherwise more desirable than the conventional URL.
The invention contemplates the transformation of a conventional URL to an identifier that is familiar to the user. (This familiar identifier will be referred to as a xe2x80x9cfriendlyxe2x80x9d identifier.) This transformed identifier would be displayed to the user. Internally, the apparatus would continue to use the conventional URL and would use this URL in accessing resources on the Internet. Similarly, all resource identifiers that are returned to the apparatus as a result of its operations would be transformed into identifier that are familiar to the user.